Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’

You have your EA program completely wrong!

Let’s start clarifying with a definition: “Employee advocacy” is a term used to describe the exposure that employees generate for brands using their own online assets. While social media is often the main medium for employee advocacy, these “online assets” include email, chat, forums, discussion boards and more.” (Source: Linkhumans).

Going through a large number of post on how to start an Employee Advocacy Program, I found the following recurring elements. Most include some kind of a mission; creating trust and freedom quickly followed by social media policy (of course); a set of advocacy tools; some kind of an incentive plan; company generated and focused content; and finally possibly some training.

The focus of the program is on Reach and KPIs as measurement criteria. Though this might make sense from a company’s point of view, it does not from the advocate’s point of view.

What is really needed to get to advocacy going is “Passion”. Few (or no) programs are addressing this. Let me dig a little deeper on what I mean by passion.

Passion for the company

Passionate employee are those that pay attention to the company’s strategies and tactics. They follow every step the company is taking to be successful. Sometimes they might question these steps. They see their role in that success. They defend their company every time without being asked and not because someone in the company ordered them. Most importantly, they are not motivated by money.

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for the culture

Companies must have a passionate work culture that translates into devotion, recognition and long-term employment. Open communications, honesty are key components that must exist within the company. A lot of the times, you team culture springs to mind. And as the expression goes: there is no I in Team! And yes, EA is about creating trust and freedom!

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for products and services

The next level is that your employees need to be passionate about their products and services. They see how these products make a difference and what their contribution to that success is. It makes them proud!

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for helping

Yet another key element for advocacy is that you give freely without expecting any immediate return or otherwise stated the giver does not specify what should be given in return but rather accepts that the recipient is free might decide to give something at some point. As a giver you are trying to add value to your network and community.

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for social

Employees also have to have a passion for social media. And I do not mean obsessed with constant updates but more about that internal fire to share and contribute without asking the ‘return’ questions. So if they have no or limited social media accounts they will not suddenly create them and start sharing information because you ask them (via a amplification platform using gamification techniques).

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Passion for personal branding

Finally, there must be a need/want of the employee to do personal branding and that using content that is either handed to them or they curated/created themselves. The WIIIFM factor is and must be high and add value to the network of the individual.

And yes, there is an “I” in team when it comes to employee advocacy. Here is the magic formula:

Employee Advocacy = Team + I

Without that passion there is no employee advocacy.

Remember that Passion and authenticity are hard to fake and people see through it easily. Of course, this comes at a cost: the cost of failing and changing direction at some point. That’s okay because it lets you know it is time to move on and follow new passions.

So when you set up an Employee Advocacy program releasethe passion first!

The low hanging fruit for ambassadorship is Employee Advocacy and yet many (not to say most) companies are failing miserably at it.

Why and what to get it on the rails of for many one of the burning questions on the table.

4 golden rules for Employee Advocacy and Sharing

When it comes to Employee Advocacy there are 4 golden and simple rules:

You employees follow your company accounts

There is a culture of sharing

The WIIIFM factor (for the employees) of posts is high

Content is generated by the employees

Let’s take a look at the above rules and answer the question of why and what

Employees follow corporate accounts

This seems so obvious but it is not. Sometimes because companies have not asked, sometimes because of ignorance and even sometime because employee choose not to. Few companies take the time to promote their own social accounts internally even though externally thousands of dollars/euros are spent to get followers/fans. Companies assume employees will find and follow the accounts anyway. But how do you expect your employees to look for them and even going one step further to share from there.

Why not run an internal campaign to promote social media accounts and content as first step to true Employee Advocacy?

Sharing culture

It must be said that some people and even nations share more than others. Us Belgians are renounded for not sharing. Sharing must be encouraged (via the social media policy) and done by example. The management team and the social media lead by example for the rest of the organization to follow. How do you expect employees to share what management and others do not share themselves.

Social media usage (also for private reasons during worktime) must be encouraged but forced upon your employees.

Oh by-the-way, the corporate account might want to share some of the content posted by its employees and this without being told to do so.

WIIIFM

People share if the content they share makes them look good of entertaining to their audience, friends, fans and followers. As a company post creator you should keep that in mind and not the promotion of company products and/or services. Most company post do not hold the potential for people to share and look good!

User-Generated Content

Sharing is a 2-way process and successful posts have a high level of human factor embedded in them. Showing off your employees (and no, they will not be stolen away from you) and their content will make sharing so much more attractive. One step further is using content from your employees on your corporate account will dramatically increase even more the level of sharing. See it as a pat on the back and recognition for having great content.

And then there are tools

Since Employee Advocacy is seen as the golden egg, companies are looking for ways to make it hatch faster. Here come the tools to help (aka“force”) the sharing actions. These tools even come with incentive programs (gamification) to make sharing even more attractive. But gamification will only work so long. In my humble opinion no longer than 3 to 6 months. And yes, internal promotion will be required. Let me clear these tools have their role to play and are a good way to kick start social sharing of company posts but they are no longtime cure. There are a lot of great tools out there to help you with social sharing and employee advocacy.

However, the real cure lies in adhering to the above 4 rules to make Employee Advocacy a success!

Feel free to agree of disagree with me and sharing this in the comment field below.

Though I am not against paying for LinkedIn I believe you should be stretching it first to its limits before you do pay. I find that a lot of people are paying where they shouldn’t or as they are not using the extra functionality. Let me give you some insight into why I think you should not pay…

Additional Filters

I agree with the fact that the advanced search of LinkedIn is very powerful. If and when you are working in a smaller type market (Belgium with 2.3 million members), these extra parameters are of no value.

Tip : just use the keyword search to get better results. You will not be disappointed.

More Search Results

Okay, you can see more than 100 profiles which means that your search is not specific enough. Let’s be honest you do not have the time or even energy to scroll through 30 screens. You are not doing this on Google search so why would you do it on LinkedIn.

Tip: Be more specific in your search criteria.

More saved searches

There is something to be said about that were it not that few people (that I know or have been in my classes) even know about this function. It is very powerful to detect who in your network has changed his/her profile and now falls into your “target audience”.

Tip: set up your 3 saved searches

Do more reference searches

To my knowledge few people are even coming close to using this function. Heck, most of them have not even discovered where this button is. And let’s be real, in my neck of the world people ask you who to contact as reference.

Tip: Get some recommendations and endorsements of your skills. You could add to your summary that you are willing to provide references (if needed).

Inmails

Of course, this is one of the high flyers when it comes to paying for LinkedIn. Is sending emails to someone you do not know really such a good idea or practice? And by-the-way, did you know that you can send an email to anyone for free?

Tip: Just join one of the groups that person belongs to and your email is free!

More Introductions

Yet another one of LinkedIn’s biggest secrets. Like in real life you can be introduced by someone you mutually know. The quality of the network of many LinkedIn members is very good so they can do this type of introductions. Great feature but rarely used. I rarely get a request (which I gladly pass along – try me!) even though I do have a large network. Since this feature is hardly known few use up the 3 introductions.

Tip: Use your monthly 3 free introductions and be open to pass introduction.

See full profiles of 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree contact

Yes, it can be frustrating not to see the details of your 3rd degree contacts. However, these people have a public profile which can be easily found back through a simple google search. All you have to do is enter the First name, initial and company and Google will give you the public LinkedIn profile. Here you will find the full story. Have you ever tried?

Tip: Try a Google Search on one of your 3rd degree contacts.

Who viewed your profile

Yet another top reason to pay for LinkedIn. You can see everyone who visited your profile in the last 90 days. Do you have any idea how many people visit your profile on a daily? I dare to tell me it is over 5 which is what you see when you have a free subscription. And no, you will nog see more from the anonymous people who view your profile.

Are you really waiting for unknown people to send you emails on LinkedIn?

Tip: Just mention you email address in your summary or make visual on your public profile

The gold Badge (Premium)

Well, what a vain person are you?

Tip: Be less vain!

Conclusion

Unless you are a recruiter or salesperson working in a very large community, it makes no sense to pay for LinkedIn. Stretch the free version of LinkedIn to its limits before you decide to pay. Yes, I have recently signed up for a premium account for Sales Navigator. As part of my social selling practice, I need to appraised of its functionality. The jury is out whether this will actually bring me the so much awaited ROI. Will keep you posted on my results!

The end of the year is slowly on the horizon. And with that come numerous competitions for “best in class”. One of these is the Datanews “CIO of the Year” competition.

Sometime ago (august) the list of the top 10 nominees was published. Each of the nominees was selected for having a good vision, strategic insight, leadership qualities and personality. And then is was up to the the public to vote who will be in the top 3! The winner will be crowned on November 20th in Brussels.

I started wondering how these CIO’s would go about promoting their candidacy for the top 3. One great place to do this is social media. Think of the success of #TVVV or #BGT. Since I had some reasearch (blogpost of April 2011) a long while back, I decided to take another look on social media. After all these years I expected the presence to be much improved. But no, it was again (still?) staggering to see their presence is very limited.

LinkedIn

All CIO’s have a reasonable complete profile and good amount of contacts. However, few have discovered the functionality of sharing a Status Update which could be formidable weapon in their quest to become one of the Top 3 CIO’s.

Only one CIO noticed that I visited their profile and wanted to connect. The rest did not even click back. Well I guess who will get my vote.

Twitter

7 out of the 10 do have a twitter account which I think is great. When it comes to tweeting few have masterd the art. They all remain under 300 tweets (all-time) and 50% have not tweeted at all. I just wonder if they know who is following they.

Facebook

Half the CIOs are on facebook. And of those who are, none of them have protected their friends and/or pictures. I would have thought they of all people would know something about privacy.

Google+

CIO’s seem not to missed Google+ completely. I think 3 have discovered it probably by accident but their profile lack content and general information. It is as good as empty. But then again, Google+ is considered to be the desert among social media platforms. Maybe CIO’s will move directly to ello.co?

Other platform

When it comes to leadership one would hope that CIO’s run a blog but unfortunately, I was not able to find one. Neither do they have a slideshare account or YouTube channel. But one could say this is only for marketing.

Conclusion

Even though their companies are using social media heavily, CIO’s themselves still have not discovered Social Media – the cloud applications that outrun any other application domain. It is clear that Social Media will have a minimal bearing on the winning of votes to be among the top 3. This was a sad conclusion on most of the profiles of the 10 CIO’s

There are all kinds of statistics around about when to post where and with what frequency in order to reach as many people as possible. Over the course of the summer, I conducted a survey among my LinkedIn contacts, Twitter followers and Facebook friends to understand their social media behaviour. Here are the results.

Twitter

Check Frequency: 45% check Twitter mulitple times per day. Add another 17% that checks it daily.

Check Peak: The prime moments for checking Twitter seems to be during and after work hours (over 70% for both categories). The morning seems to show the lowest activity and so do breaks.

Post Frequency: There is a wide spread which is linked to the large number of lurkers on Twitter. However, it seems that 43% tweet 1-3/week,. 27% do it between 1 and 3 times per day. Less than 10% tweet more than 5 times per day.

LinkedIn

Check Frequency: The use of LinkedIn for more than HR purposes is driving up the frequency with which people check LinkedIn. With over 35% checking multiple times/day and 29% daily we give LinkedIn a thumbs up. Amazingly enough 2% never visits their profile while the rest checks it once a month.

Check Peak: As can be expected with a “professional” networking platform, most people access it during the work day. An amazing 80% do it during work hours. Breaks, mornings and evenigs do not seem to be so popular. It si considered work.

Post Frequency: From experience I know people do not do many Status Updates on LinkedIn. The survey confirmed this again with 27% never posting and 33% only once a month. Less than 11% post daily on LinkedIn.

Facebook

Check Frequency: As expected over 65% check their Facebook multiple times per day. Adding the 17% of daily checkers and we can conclude we are addicted to Facebook!

Check Peak: Here too, not many surprises except the fact that before breakfast does not do so well. The highest peak lies in the evening after work.

Post Frequency: Since facebook has the highest degree of “lurkers” it is not surprising that weekly (42%) and daily (31%) post are the dominant numbers here.

Google what?

Yet again, Google+ demonstrates its ability to stay under the radar. Even though there are so many accounts (gmail users, android users, picasa users, youtube user, etc.) few people are even aware they have a G+ account. More that 60% never visit the account with another 10% that don’t even know they have such an account.

Conclusion

Though this research did not reveal anything dramatic, it confirms that LinkedIn is the professional tool of choice and tolerated in the workplace; Facebook the lurking tool into our realm of friends and brands; Twitter the platform no one really knows what to think of; and Google+ that special place in the desert!

We all know that Twitter was conceived to exchange information in short message format. But it has evolved to much more. There are Tweetstorms, Tweetchats, Twitterwalls, etc., which are creating a lot of commotion about the usage of Twitter. People are getting disenchanted with the users of these practices but are they really all that bad? Maybe not? And what strategy should follow to counter these negative comments?

Twitterstorms

A Twitter storm is stretching the Twitter term Microblog to become a real (full) Blog. Twitter was certainly not build for this with its 140 character limit. However, some people are splitting up their text and start splitting their story into separate messages. Each item is numbered so that the reader can follow the thread. Of course, your followers are getting a lot messages in a very limited timeframe thus polluting their Twitterstreams. However, with so many people on Twitter, it is great way to spread your story. Will this change how people are using Twitter? Maybe not… Who knows you might even some extra followers, though unlikely.

The biggest danger is that due to fast pace of tweeting, many of your followers might get disenchanted and start unfollowing you.

My thoughts: Personally, I think you have more to lose than to win by creating such as storm. If you have a (long) story to tell, I think you should be using a real blog and use Twitter to direct traffic to your blog.

Tweetchat

A Tweetchat is live moderated Twitter event around a certain topic using a specific hashtag. Tweetchats are planned events which are announced on Twitter and on websites. Typically, there are 5 to 6 questions put forward that will be asked during the course of 1 hour. To participate, all you need to do is tweet during the set times using the designated hashtag. Of course like with a webinar, It’s also possible to just follow the conversation by searching the hashtag without engaging.

One thing you have to remember, is that during a Tweetchat in which you actively participate, you will also create a large number of tweets thus also polluting the streams of your followers. Again this might lead to people unfollowing you. However, if they pick up on the hashtag and discover the great conversation, it could be considered as a good thing.

My thoughts: I have recently joined a number these Tweetchat sessions and it has brought me 3 pieces of value:

Information gathering – much like a webinar you get and can absorb knowledge about a certain topic. People share freely and publicly information. A great place for learning!

Get more relevant followers – everyone on the chat can relate to the topic. So by sharing relevant and valuable information with other members on the chat, you can easily discover new interesting people and increase your twitter followers.

Conclusion and recommendation:

I think you need to think carefully about starting a Twitterstorm or Tweetchat from your personal account. There will big spikes in you twitter activity and we all know that your followers are not waiting for this. Maybe the solution could be that you create a clearly defined account for these types of twitter activities whereby you make sure there is a good connection with your personal account. This way you can participate fully and not disenchant your followers.

Finally, I want to end this post with 3 questions:

What do you think about Tweetchats and storms? And my suggested approach?

What interesting Tweetchats do know and do you participate in? My favorites are: #s4lchat, #HSENTchat #contentmarketing and #HRchatBE (unfortunately stopped in march)

When you use linkedIn we all love the feature “Who has viewed our profile”. Though this is a key feature on LinkedIn and in a social selling approach, it is also a great source of frustration.

But first something else I am wondering about connected to “Who has viewed your profile”. Recently I saw a post that someone who completes their “Summary” get 10x more views on LinkedIn. Watch out there is a catch which I will come to later. For now, no one nor any article can explain me if this is true or why? Of course, I believe you need to complete this section in your profile since it is your evelator pitch. But what the effect is on being found, I do not really get. Well secretly, I do. Anyone (from LinkedIn) care to comment and back it up with proof?

And now for my catches.

LinkedIn is all about networking. And still people decide they want to remain semi-anonymous or anonymous. It is my experience these people are either my competitors or recruiters. I can’t t get my head around the fact they are not open to being identified. I wonder if they go to real life network meetings with a bag over their head or hand you a business card from someone else? Strange! I guess they have a good reason which I fail to understand, but that is my problem and yes, my frustration. Let me tell you I will let you know if I viewed your profile and who knows maybe we can help eachother! That is the true nature of networking and LinkedIn.

But recently I ran across another interesting issue. The count of people who viewed my profile seems to be different depending on the language interface I use. Below is a screenshot of my profile views using the english (342) and dutch (559) interface. Very strange indeed. It seems LinkedIn makes me more popular in NL than EN. And yes, they are the same people. Out goes my trust in LinkedIn statistics! Anyone care to enlighten me?

Let me be clear, I am a LinkedIn addict and believer but sometimes we need to step back to put it all into perspective. Of course, I will continue to use the “who viewed my profile” to reach out to people and conduct business. I love to hear your views and comments!

Over the course of the years we have seen an explosion of social media networks and tools. Though most of these tools come in Freemium, most of us continue with the free version. Here is a list of tools – and I will exclude Twitter and LinkedIn since most of you are using these anyway- you should be using if you are trying to make your life simpler while using social media.

To complete your social media monitor you could set up a number of Google Alerts to get informed when Google has indexed more articles within your search criteria (your area of expertise, News, Video’s, etc.) . This is an ideal source to find content to share with your audience or leads

As a consultant you are probably reading a lot of blogs or articles. Posting and sharing this information all at the same time is not a good idea. Buffer will help you out by allowing you to schedule posts from theses articles themselves over 10 time slots during the course of the day on 3 social media platforms for free.

If you are a Twitter user, understanding and managing your audience is key. Keep track of your new followers, who to unfollow, who to engage, etc. is good to know but what really stands out is to know who is no longer following you. Commun.it and some other tools will provide you with the answer. You can re-engage them and recapture your unfollowers.

Consultants have a lot of knowledge which could position themselves as a thought leaders. You are probably trying to get into the press to get visibility with your target audience and it does not always work out every month. So why not auto-publish and start your own blog. Sharing your views, best practices, tips and tricks are great ways to get recognized for your knowledge.

Giving presentations and training sessions are part of your life. Uploading your presentations to Slideshare will not only boost your SEO, but also create thought leadership and even generate leads. It is also a great source to find information about your area of expertise or about your clients.

People like to see their consultants at work. Nothing works better than videos. Using Instagram, Vine or just your smartphone you can create a good sample of what you do. Posting these videos of presentations, training sessions or workshops will create the necessary trust to get invited for a sales pitch.

You are for or against G+. I am all in favor because the Hangouts are a powerful tool for communicating with clients. Using these Hangouts you can not only save yourself from driving a lot of miles to visit your clients but also have face to face contacts and share data/presentations/et al from your PC in a streamlined way. It can also be a great collaboration platform between fellow consultants working on the same projects. A wonderful timesaver

Sharing files has never been easier, using Dropbox you can share files between your own devices (PC/Smartphone/Tablet) but also between clients or peers. There are of course alternatives such as Google Doc, Skydrive, Googgle Drive, etc. These applications can also be used for making a backup of your data.

One of the apps I have come to appreciate over the course of the last year is Evernote. Taking notes has never been easier. The notes are synchronized between your devices so which ever device your bring to the meeting you have the latest meeting report on you.

Though I am not a big fan of automating my social media activity, I have found that Zapier and IFTTT do have a place in my modus operandi. It can automate the repetitive tasks I would do anyway. And yes, they are people who are against this

13. Wunderlist (www.wunderlist.com)

If you are a bit like me you have a number of to do lists, As with Evernote, I have come to appreciate Wunderlist as a cross-device platform to keep track of all those tasks I need to accomplish.

Of course, the list does not end here. There is always a bit of a trade-off between how much time you need to spend using the tool and how much ROI it provides. Which other one’s are you using to make your social media life simpler or more complete.

Over the summer months of 2013 I have done some research how recruiters in Belgium present themselves on LinkedIn (750 profiles of recruitment professionals reviewed) and here are my conclusions (and also the reasons why candidates do not click on recruiter’s profiles).

Reason #1: 50% have NO profile picture. Recruiters want to see what candidates look like, but so do candidates want to know what recruiters look like.

Reason #2: They have no contact information. And yes, only the 1st degree contacts can see you email/phone number but still as a recruiter you want to have the “good” candidates find you easily. Only 1 in 8 has their email/phone number visible somewhere in their profile! Only 50% mention their website!

BTW. Few job seekers are not using the Inmail functions.

Reason #3: Only 33% have a personalized Vanity URL. This could suggest a newbie or someone who does not care about their image or profile.

Reason #4: Few contact (Less than 250). I understand you are careful with who you let into your network but less than 500 contacts does not foster any confidence that the recruiter is “well connected”. It is also unlikely they will connect with you, even if they do not share who they are connected to..

Reason #5: About 50% have completed their summary information (your elevator pitch). When it comes to their work history it seems they are not willing to provide much detail about it other than their title. Less than 10% have discovered the multi-media possibilities of LinkedIn. It seems the motto is “less is better”. Again not fostering confidence.

Reason #6: Recruiters do not seems to share much which groups they belong to. Most are part of 8 to 12 groups mostly general or peer groups. So again, it makes it difficult for candidates to get in touch with them. (Tip: remember, you can send free emails to all group members). Additionally, recruiters do not seem to follow any companies. Most follow their own only.

Reason #7: Few recruiters are active on other networks such as Twitter, Facebook or Google+. So Twitter handles can barely be found on their LinkedIn profile.

Reason #9: Recruiters barely use Status Update to inform their network they are looking for candidates or even better sharing valuable information about the recruitment business or processes.

Reason #10: Most recruiters have few endorsements (sign of unhappy candidates?). And recommendations are even more hard to find.

When it comes down to company profile, recruitment companies do not stand out an example. Here are some examples:

76% have their logo on the company profile

33% have a cover picture

41% have Products and Services filled in

22% have recommendations for these Products and Services

33% use Company Status updates to inform their followers about new opportunities or to share information with their contacts.

97% of all company updates NEVER get shared, liked or commented on

Less than 50% mention on their website they can be found on Social Media!

.I would like to end with 2 conclusions:

Recruiters still social media (and LinkedIn in particular) as a one-way street where they control the drive direction. However, social media is a two-way street with a lot of opportunities. Most recruiters are aware they need to have a professional profile but they have a long way to go.

Recruiters seem to forget they need to find new clients and opportunities to fill too, but their profile does not appeal to future clients.

What reasons do you have not to visit recruiter’s profile? Love to hear from you!

If you are interested in getting a copy of the results of my survey (200 companies and 750 profiles reviewed), please mail me at mic@vanguard-leadership.be .

It is just over a month ago that Belgium had its first #kloutparty. To attend you needed to prove (or not) your influence by having a high Kloutscore.

Have you ever wondered how some of these young men and women have done it to increase their influence in a short period of time? Do you really think they are on social media all day? Think again because there are some shortcuts… Some are using social media automation tools. Whether this is a good idea or not, you are the judge but here is a partial list of useful tools…

To start you can use the tools the platforms themselves offer. For example, your LinkedIn status can automatically be posted through on your Twitter account; On Twitter you are able to send your post through to Facebook. On Facebook you can schedule your posts in the future on your fan page allowing you to distribute messages throughout the day and when your fans are online and available. Some people schedule messages on Sunday for the rest of the week.

There are, of course, also a set of tools that allow you to schedule posts on these platforms. Listing all of them is not an option and would lead us to far but here are some examples: Facebook posts scan be easily scheduled using Postplanner, Tweets using Tweetlater and pins on Pinterest using ViralTag. Individually these are good tools but they are limited to one platform.

Scheduling on multiple platforms can be made easy through applications such as Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and others. They allow you to place one post on multiple platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and even Google+. The biggest advantage is that you only have to enter the post once and it gets posted to all selected platforms. The biggest drawback is that it is a same message everywhere and that is not always best practice. The scheduling option is useful to optimize the spread of posts throughout the day or when your target audience is online.

Some people love to share information with their network. They read a lot of stuff, discover new and interesting information and want to share it. Even though most of the content platforms do have a “share” button, the readers do not want to overshare message in a short period of time. In comes Bufferapp (aka Buffer). Buffer makes your life easier with a smarter way to schedule the great content you find. Custom scheduling, multiple accounts and detailed analytics make this app your best friend when reading and sharing information. With simple keystroke you fill up your Buffer at one time in the day and Buffer automatically posts them for you through the day. This is a great way to spread your activity level through the day.

And then, there are some extreme tools that really automate your social media: IFTTT, Zapier, Socialoomph and many more. These tools work on the simple principle of “Action & Reaction” of better “Trigger & Reaction”. IFTTT and Zapier use “recipes” to automate social media activity meaning if you place a message on one platform it triggers an action on a platform. An example: if you have a new follower (IF/Trigger) you could create a DM or Reply Tweet to welcome your new follower (THEN THIS/reaction). Using these tools you can automate a lot of your social media activity from just one post. However, I want to caution you here that these tools also hold certain dangers that could have a negative effect. An example: If your trigger is a #hashtag do not blindly Retweet this message as it could say bad things about you!

Personally I am not a big fan of automation but in certain cases I do use it once in a while. It turns out that these are the action that I would do anyway and hold very little danger. Which of these tools you will be using will depend on what your are trying to automate keeping in mind the advantages but also possible disadvantages. As always there is no social media automation tool that fits all needs. My personal favorite is Buffer.